Hijab, Burqa and Burkini

Submitted by Iftikhar Ahmad (United Kingdom), Nov 6, 2016 at 07:05

Secularism is about respecting the right of people to follow any religion equally (or none), and of keeping religion out of politics and politics out of religion. Secularism is a check and balance against fundamentalist excess. Sensible people of faith are, or ought to be, secularists - unless they follow a brand of religion that wants to control everybody.

The question is not about to veil or not to veil but for every woman to have the right to choose. This is question of basic human right including the right to freedom of religion and expression. French administrators have played into people's fears and intolerance without adequately answering what great threat was posed by girls going to school in a headscarves? I do not believe in taking the rights of other people, and doing so shows the weakness of French democracy.

This is Britain. We are to a large extent 'free' people. Burqa and Burkini should be allowed to wear what they want. Burqa is not locking women, it is a buffer line between protecting chastity and exposing. Being naked and drunk is acceptable but being covered and modest is inhuman.

I am sick of government intervention in ever aspect of everyone's lives! So we make the rules to promote so-called Freedom of Right and then when we come up against an issue we don't know what to do. Typical Britain, where we do not seem to think about many things before we act in the first place. This is just the beginning. As they say when you go to Rome do what the Romans do! But we are not and will never be the Romans either.

French president wants Muslim women to be topless like his wife who posed topless in fashion shows. He has no right to ban the Burqa because it is undemocratic and an unqualified attack on individual freedom. Burqa is not just a piece of cloth but a lot of ideological and cultural connotation to it. Women are just being exploited in the name of rights. Burqa protects women's rights and treat each women like a princess. No one has the right to ban the freedom of choice in a secular and democratic country. The right to choice is a basic fundamental right the person should have.

One Muslim woman, Caroline Chaiima, writing in Lepoint.fr, said she wore a veil: "Let those most closely concerned speak. I am a French woman born in France, with French parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and I am a Muslim. I wear the full veil and I feel like saying: So what? I am happy behind the veil, I protect myself from depraved stares. Neither my father, nor my brother, nor my husband forced the full veil upon me; it's a personal choice."

A Muslim, hijab-wearing woman is now one of the easy, breezy and beautiful faces of CoverGirl.

The cosmetics company announced beauty blogger Nura Afia as one of the latest brand ambassadors for its "So Lashy" mascara, meaning she, along with a diverse lineup of other models, will appear in CoverGirl commercials and on a billboard in Times Square.

For Afia, a Muslim woman in hijab representing a mainstream US cosmetics brand, is a milestone for the Muslim community.

"It's a big accomplishment for all of us," Afia told CNN. "It means that little girls that grew up like me have something to look up to. I grew up feeling like hijab would hold me back."

If that was ever the case, it seems like the hijab certainly isn't holding Afia back now. She has more than 200,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, where she posts video tutorials on how to recreate various makeup looks, and more than 300,000 followers on Instagram.
Afia said CoverGirl reached out to her in early October about potentially being in a commercial for the company, but she didn't realize the extent to which she would be representing the brand.

"It's huge," Afia said. "It means we're being represented in a good light for once."

CoverGirl's announcement is the latest to promote diversity and inclusiveness. In October, the company announced James Charles as its first male ambassador. Other faces of the "So Lashy" campaign include two black women, an Asian-American woman and Latina actress Sofia Vergara.

"We've always stood for inclusive beauty that supports any and all types," CoverGirl wrote in a recent Instagram post.

The hijab has been making its way into Western advertisements, albeit slowly. Last year, Swedish retailer H&M ran its first ad showing a Muslim model in hijab. In the US, Afia is still one of few Muslim women in hijab to appear in such ads.

Afia said her role as CoverGirl ambassador is a positive step toward mainstream representation for Muslim girls.

"It shows that we're average Americans," Afia said. "We're just girls that love to play with makeup and do every day stuff."
IA
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".